November 8, 2012 | As a super PAC, American Crossroads was responsible for about $105 million of the total $631 million spent on independent expenditures by super PACs in the 2012 election cycle -- but it came out on the winning side just 21 percent of the time. Crossroads GPS spent more than $70 million on top of that and had a success rate that was only slightly better -- just 29 percent.

November 7, 2012 | President Barack Obama clinched a second term last night relying on many of the same campaign finance tools he used in his pre-Citizens United victory in 2008: party support and an in-house campaign finance operation that turned to individual donors and a web of elite bundlers to expand its reach. He received comparatively little help from outside spending groups.
But that's not to say super PACs and secretive nonprofit groups had no influence on the election -- although they heavily favored conservative candidates, many of whom lost, they created an arms race that helped drive the cost of election to record levels.

October 30, 2012 | Candidate-specific super PACs, once exclusively associated with presidential hopefuls, have moved down-ticket and are now supporting candidates in congressional races this election.
Super PACs devoted solely to supporting a congressional candidate spent $28 million in the 2012 election with about $22 million going toward helping conservative candidates, according to a Center for Responsive Politics analysis of campaign data.

August 28, 2012 | Charlie Crist makes convention news, agreeing to speak at the Democratic event next week -- despite being the beneficiary of millions from Republicans during his career, a New Hampshire gubernatorial candidate shows how to run a campaign on the cheap, and convention sponsors are holding back this year.

May 17, 2012 | Republicans and Democrats rushed this week to argue that stronger government regulation would or wouldn't have forestalled JPMorgan Chase's multibillion dollar losses. But they didn't mention whether they owned shares in the bank themselves. At least 38 of them do.

August 25, 2011 | Three dozen members of Congress held stock in Apple in 2009, the most recent year for which data is available. That makes it one of the most popular assets among all congressional investors.

June 20, 2011 | Several congressmen were eager to sever all ties with the companies responsible for one of the biggest environmental disasters in the nation's history. OpenSecrets Blog previously reported that high-ranking members of congress dumped their BP assets in the aftermath of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill last year. And another analysis of personal financial disclosure documents released last week shows that many also divested their stocks for Transocean, the company that owned the Deepwater Horizon oil platform that BP operated.

October 20, 2010 | In the run up to the 2010 midterm elections, Soros joins a handful of young, emerging political heavyweights, many of whom are related to other prolific political donors. And they're helping tip the scales toward Democrats in the competition for students' campaign cash, the Center's analysis indicates.

April 13, 2010 | Particularly vulnerable or especially promising politicians often receive financial help from their fellow partisans who want success on election day. Toward this end, party leaders and others may transfer or contribute money from their candidate committees and leadership PACs to these targeted candidates.

October 16, 2009 | An initial Center for Responsive Politics analysis has found that sitting members of the U.S. House of Representatives raised $48.2 million from July 1 through Sept. 30, 2009, based on the 336 reports we have in. The mean amount these lawmakers raised was $143,640, and the median amount was $126,680.

June 25, 2009 | In the first three months of 2009, the pharmaceutical and health products industry has spent more than $66.5 million on lobbying–an amount that translates into $1.2 million every day Congress has been in session. Just how much influence will that amount buy?

June 25, 2009 | Here's a cool tool that brings together data from various parts of OpenSecrets.org to show how much money each current lawmaker has raised from various health-related industries and the health sector overall since 1989 (including President Obama's haul).

February 12, 2009 | The close ties between Rep. John Murtha and a Washington lobbying firm raided by the FBI have put the powerful Pennsylvania Democrat under greater scrutiny. The lobbyists at PMA Group have been Murtha's fifth most generous campaign donor over time, but he is just one of 284 members of the 111th Congress who have collected money from the firm, which specializes in securing federal earmarks for its clients. In total, PMA Group's employees and its political action committee have given current members of Congress $3.4 million since 1989.

September 23, 2008 | The last time Congress seriously debated how to regulate the financial industry, the result was legislation that allowed the nation's largest banks to get even larger and take risks that had been prohibited since the Great Depression. A look back at that debate, which was over the 1999 Financial Services Modernization Act, reveals that campaign contributions may have influenced the votes of politicians who, a decade later, are now grappling with the implosion of the giant banks they helped to foster.

September 11, 2008 | When the federal government announced two months ago that it would be seizing mortgage buyers Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, CRP looked at how much money members of Congress had collected since 1989 from the companies. On Sunday the government proceeded with the takeover and we've returned to our data to bring you the updates, this time providing a list of all 354 lawmakers who have gotten money from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (in July we posted the top 25).

June 18, 2008 | If you're sick of counting your own pennies, now you can take a break and check out what your representatives are worth. The Center for Responsive Politics has updated our Personal Financial Disclosures database to include the 2007 annual reports for all members of Congress, at least those who filed their reports on time.

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